A few matches under 10 minutes

 Kengo Mashimo vs. Isami Kodaka, K-Dojo 9/30/2002

Hey... did you know skinny deathmatch wrestler Isami Kodaka was once a skinny shootfighter dressed like a SHOOTO guy throwing wild punches and trying to break arms with flash armbars? You'll be surprised! This was just a hair under 5 minutes and it was like a more primitive version of Ikeda/Ono, so it was still pretty great! Both guys look awesome here. Mashimo doesn't have the hair dye and ponytail yet but he looks like quite the Hashimoto-esque figure here being a karateka dressed in black and taking on a shooter. Kodaka throws wild punches and spin kicks just great. The crazy spill over the rope was awesome  and the way Mashimo just decimated Kodaka with some of the most brutal head kicks and knees ever was harrowing. Quite the sub-5 minute war.

No Rules Match: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Kensuke Sasaki, NJPW 4/9/2001

It’s Shinya Hashimoto vs Kensuke Sasaki in 2001 New Japan in a NO RULES match. So it’s pretty much exactly what you want: plenty violent, short, no filler, just raw straight forward brutality. I had no idea this match even happened until now and it has no ratings in Cagematch, so that tells you this era of New Japan is still kinda underrated. Hashimoto goes into this with MMA gloves and there are some CAPTURE-esque exchanges to start. Sasaki is best as a primitive crowbar and that’s what he does here, Hashimoto would make him eat some hands early on so Sasaki just nuked him with a huge suplex. No Rules means there’s no rope breaks so Sasaki came across like a savage trying to rip out Hashimotos arm when he went for the armbar. Hashimoto came back with one of the nastiest punch flurries I’ve ever seen. After almost knocking Sasaki out, Hashimoto took the gloves off and they agree to a pro wrestling lock up before throwing kesagiri chops which was pretty awesome. Sasaki snatching Hash for the northern lights bomb out of nowhere was also pretty amazing. The car crash violent bomb throwing last few minutes were fairly great. Hashimoto is a king at building long intense matches but this kind of violent outburst also suits him pretty well.

Akira Nogami vs Yuji Nagata, NJPW/AAA 11/16/1994

Great 7 minute match. Young Nagata was working like an aggressive BattlARTS guy here, throwing wild strikes constantly and fighting back against Nogami with shootstyle technique. Nogami, of course, would end up grabbing one of those kicks, twist him over with a Dragon Screw and then stomp the hell out of that leg. Wrestling can be so simple but effective sometimes. Nagatas hulk up was also surprisingly great actually. The finishing stretch while brief was all well timed cool moments, such as Nogami resisting hard against Nagatas belly to belly suplex and hitting a really precise enzuigiri or Nagata unleashing some explosive kicks. Give me two guys going all out for 7 minutes and really comitting even to basic stuff like this any day.

Volk Han vs. Masayuki Naruse, RINGS 10/23/1993

This match has been called a contender for the greatest wrestling match under 10 minutes. It’s certainly an interesting pick. Han is bigger than Naruse so he really ragdolls him. I mean we all know Han is a monster but he was really yanking him around with his signature insanely fast wristlocks and throws, and straight up slamming him here and there. Hans wristlocks certainly have more aura than any other wrestlers wristlocks. This is Han as usual – dominating on the ground and you get some of the wildest submissions and escapes you’ll see anywhere. This man was truly a genius at coming up with unique submissions without getting too cute. Naruse is pretty much overwhelmed, but he gives a gutsy performance. He already loves the spinning back open hand strike and just tries to barrage Han early, but Han would catch him constantly. He does come up with some counters here and there, and Volk lets him have a moment knocking him down with a liver shot. There’s a great nearfall from a cross heel hook with Naruse desperately trying to escape and coming up limping after barely making the rope. He gets one last hope moment throwing some more body shots but Han spins him around for an easy tag. This was a Volk Han special, and the fact that it was pretty much a midcard bout against a much lower ranked opponent speaks volumes to how good Han was that even such a throwaway match would end up feeling special.

Yoshiko Tamura vs. Aja Kong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thSUqf6hgJo

Classic Aja trashing, if you like the Chaparita Asari match you will also like this. Tamura throws the kitchen sink at her to try and stop the monster. Tamura was putting major force even into her slightly goofy flying cross chops. The backfist that Aja nailed her with looked harder than many Kos in MMA fights. Check it out for a hard 2 minute fight.

Ito Dojo - Kaoru Ito Debut 20th Anniversary 10/25/2009

     Ayumi Kurihara vs Ayako Sato

Really fun, scrappy joshi opening match. No choreographed sequences or waiting for the other person to get in position which is always refreshing to see, they both just went for dropkicks and armbars. There was also some matwork that actually felt like two people fighting rather than going through the motions. Sato was really straightforwardly solid with her quick dropkicks, while Kurihara was obviously set to be a big prospect in the joshi scene. There was one really fast sequence of pin attempts that they pull off insanely well. True to joshi form, the finish is Sato kicking out of one Uranage suplex, so Kurihara would hit her with 4 in a row and then force the pin like an olympic match. Miss these kinda joshi undercard matches.

Manami Toyota & Jaguar Yokota vs Aki Kambayashi & Shu Shibutani

Can you believe Jaguar Yokota was 48 years old and a 32 year vet here? She was still moving pretty smooth. Toyota is like in any other match of hers that you’ve seen, just hitting her spots. Front dropkick, armdrag from the ropes, rolling cradle, you know the deal. She could still fly around but it’s less impressive when she’s teaming with Yokota who moves better and can actually work while being much older. Shibutani got popped by an elbow in the mouth early on, causing her to bleed and it made her powering through the rest of the match a bit more interesting. Shu and Aki (who is Miss Mongol of all people) were outmatched early on but they had a few fun ways to get in some offense on the legends, and it made the match more interesting than had it been even steven. Aki looked energetic but then her big spot was a bronco buster. They actually end up losing to one of those double submissions and now that’s damning.

Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs ZAP-I & ZAP-T

The ZAPs feel rather bizarre looking back. My guess is they were an attempt of AJW to recapture the spark of Gokuaku Domei, but obviously that wasn’t going to work. They both seem like they could be folklore creatures, like urban monsters or something. Anyways this was pretty fun and kinda delivered more than you’d expect. Action was solid with lots of brawling and weapon shots but also enough in-ring stuff to not feel lazy. Shimoda still has her working boots on busting some cool axe kicks and a big flip dive that was pretty crazy from someone who was basically semi-retired at this point. I think one of the ZAPs is a Kaoru Ito because she hits a sick double stomp and the other one only hits Blue Thunder Drivers. 

Takako Inoue & Tomoko Mori & Yumiko Hotta vs. Cherry & Hanako Kobayashi & Noriyo Tateno

Craptastic match unfortunately. The previous match actually did well as a brawl, here they tried to have all action but nothing looked good or had gravitas. Mori and Kobayashi tried to have a section in the middle with Kobayashi bleeding but they looked painfully mediocre. Hotta looked pretty immobile and checked out as she tends to do in her late career matches. Not good, not good at all.

 

Aja Kong vs Kaoru Ito, Ito Dojo

Pretty insane, violent and gory match. Pretty much just two tough middle aged ladies out to destroy each other and it was glorious. Ito has such violent offense that fits perfectly in a kind of reckless brawl. Her double stomps – including double stomping Ajas arm – were downright insane. Her bladejob was also amazing as she looked like she got shot in the eye. Kong was freakin gold here – as we all know her. She looked great both beating on a bleeding Ito, shoving her elbow into the cut, hitting her with the point of umbrellas, as well as taking some downright insane punishment from Ito. Her selling was fantastic as she really looked like she was falling apart. It wasn’t exactly Baba vs Destroyer but there was a bit of strategy at play with Ito trying to take out the arm. Loved Aja desperation kneecapping Ito and locking in a submission to regenerate a little. This will probably mainly be appealing to fans of violent bloody matches but for that it was pretty A+.

The Library

Carlos Amano 7 Match Gauntlet

     Carlos Amano vs Dynamite Kansai, GAEA 2/29/2004

I’m a fan of these two, so a match between them could never disappoint me – even that said, I thought this was really great, pretty much the perfect underdog vs monster undercard match with both of them bringing their unique styles to the table. Opening grapple was effective as you immediately had Kansai going for more power-based holds with Amano trying to lock in a shoot submission. As soon as Kansai started throwing kicks she started to look like a cat playing with her food. I also loved her use of the iron claw slam as it establishes that she can always snatch an opponent. In addition to the violent kicks there were also some pretty hard feeling slams with Amano getting rag dolled. Amano was pretty freaking godly here trying to take down a monster as basically everything she did was nifty shootstyle submission counters and several really well timed, really violent shoot headbutts. Her running face first into a Kansai kick was also pretty awe inspiring. Great match, clocking in at just a bit over 10 minutes but every second was worthwhile.

Carlos Amano vs. Aja Kong, GAEA 4/4/2004

Hem, let’s see… it’s Carlos vs. Aja. In Korakuen Hall. No filler, any move could be a finish type work. Of course this is great. Aja is good as usual being an unfuckwithable brickwall and crushing Amano with her superior size and hard hitting, though Amano is pretty much the one who raises this from a somewhat rote (but good) Aja performance to the next level. She comes up with all kinds of cool ways to stop Aja, mostly by trying to crack her skull with her own hard head. Lot of fun to be had just from Amano having so many different ways to smash her head into Aja, even cracking Ajas hand when she goes for the Uraken because Carlos skull is so damn hard, and there are a bunch of great moments in which Aja smacks her down like a fly. I love Carlos fire here, nobody has been so confident and spunky just to get swatted down. I’m not sure which is better – this or vs Kansai – but both matches were pretty different considering they had a similar set up with Carlos taking on a bigger powerhouse – but both were pretty great.

Carlos Amano vs Ayako Hamada, GAEA 12/14

More cool GAEA sprint action. This one’s from a one night tournament and for that I think it does a really nice job bringing lots to the table while still leaving something for the later round matches. We get some cool grappling that kind of forces Ayako to go back to her ARSION roots in testing herself against a slick grappler that is trying to armbar her. Ayako quickly goes to her kick variations that look insanely sharp – boy do I miss wrestlers actually having devastating looking worked kicks and cool ways to hit their worked kicks – the match seems to go to an early finish but Carlos keeps finding ways to go for the ankle lock. It culminates in Amano catching another kick and headbutting away at Ayakos knee, a really nice little bit of a continuous story. I really wish we had a bigger match between these two at their peak, talk about missed potential because the taste we got here was pretty sweet.

Carlos Amano vs Chigusa Nagayo, GAEA 6/29/2003

Carlos throws the god damn kitchen sink at Chigusa. There’s a neat moment early where Amano goes for a suicide dive, Nagayo sidestepping, and Amano sort of catching herself halfway in the ropes and then eating a hard european uppercut from Chiggy. But Carlos is a ball of fiery energy that won’t be contained. She keeps barraging Chigusa with elbows and her signature headbutts. Just when she’s raining forearms on Chigusa and I’m thinking “She looks like she’s about to bite her damn face off” Amanos headbutts start drawing hardway blood and Carlos starts biting the cut. Awesome. That’s the kind of ruggedness GAEA has along with the slick wrestling that made it pretty great. And Chigusa does hit her with the hardest god damn kick you’ve ever seen to come back. I wasn’t quite in love with Chigusa just kind of beating Carlos. Carlos does get to no sell a powerbomb but one lariat later she’s toast. It felt like a typical Chigusa thing, always keen to squish someone like this, even knowing that Carlos would go 18 minutes against Lioness Asuka next. Carlos looked so fantastic up to that point that it made me sad she was jobbing like this.

Carlos Amano vs Devil Masami, GAEA 6/14/2003

Devil Masami was embracing the Undertaker-isms lots around this time, so there were creepy glares and superhuman displays of strength in this. The match had a lot of great ideas and devastating offense, but it was kind of marred by both of them constantly popping up and no-selling everything. Also thought Masami spent a bit too much time lying in Amanos submissions, though she looked good otherwise. After spending like half the match surviving Carlos’ fully cranked armbars Masami takes the win with a basic figure 4 necklock. Shit just doesn’t make sense sometimes.

Carlos Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki, GAEA 5/25/2003

Very 2003 Mayumi Ozaki style match, so that means KAORU and Police interfer a bunch, there’s blood, weapons, lots of odd complexity. If you can get past all the shenanigans there’s some really sweet wrestling here, Ozaki looks great smacking Amano and she has a fun ragdoll-ish way of hitting jumping kicks, while Amanos slick submission counters look great. At one point Amano was just this juggernaut cracking Ozaki with one headbutt after another, landing a sick Honda-ish deadlift german and then going to eat her forehead, it was awe inspiring. She knew she was in a chaotic brawl and she had to work this like Kintaro Oki or Bobo Brazil, downtune the fancies and instead go to crush skulls. I do wish the shenanigans had been tuned back here or there but for this kind of chaotic attitude era style match it’s really good.

Carlos Amano vs Chikayo Nagashima, GAEA 4/6/2003

Fuck did this rule. We’ve seen Amano against a gauntlet of old time veterans, playing underdog to monsters. Now she gets to face a peer that she can go toe to toe with, and they really use the chance to cook up something good. These two could easily just hit spots and please the crowds but they went far beyond that. This was a match that really felt like it was being crafted as it went. Lots of really cool wrestling and struggle early on, Nagashima hangs on to a headlock, Amano takes her over with a beautiful hip toss from there. Then Nagashima does this cool bit where she refuses to be moved, there’s also a bit with Nagashima working guard and doing crazy legs and hitting Amano with a nasty upkick, to which Amano responds by jumping on her and raining some angry strikes. Just really cool, creative wrestling. Later we get another moment where Nagashima goes for an upkick but Amano is wiser and they reset into a really intense lock up. There’s a great bit on the ramp that’s as well done as any ramp bit I can remember, really putting maximum struggle into a potential suplex on the ramp. Match had great grappling and some insanely nasty offense, Nagashimas double stomps and Amanos headbutts being hellish, Nagashima at one point just punching her straight in the face, but still keeping the nifty technical stuff important. Great shit, the kinda match that can not be replicated, they were both totally in their own world here and killed it.

Some early 90s AJW

   

Kyoko Inoue vs Takako Inoue, AJW 1/24/1993

Excellent match, which I’m afraid may be a bit of an overlooked minor classic. After some scrappy, quick exchanges, Kyoko was quite great taking over the match with varied submissions. Whenever Takako would try to come back, Kyoko would put her back down quite aggressively, and often still establish herself as the superior, graceful wrestler. Stuff like both of them fighting over a headlock leading to Kyoko kicking Takako in the face is so good and the kind of thing you basically never see anymore even though it’s so simple. Also, Inoues flying headscissor rolls and springboard moves rule. Takako ended up having to scout Kyokos spots, which she does well, there is a legbar spot where she catches Kyoko that ends up being really great. Eventually Takako capitalizes by taking chairs to Kyoko and suplexing her on the floor, which Kyoko sold like death. Really exciting ending run mostly due to Kyokos great selling of the floor sequence, which had a few big moves and some awesome drama. KO punch finish was quite unexpected but great.

Aja Kong & Sakie Hasegawa vs Kyoko Inoue & Toshiyo Yamada, AJW 10/10/1993

It’s 1993, so much of this was brutally violent, exciting and heated pro wrestling. My god does Aja Kong consistently look like just the greatest monster ever. Pretty much anytime she tagged in she would punt the shit out of people all over the ring and just try to crush people. Yamada is also pretty consistent at bringing the violence with her insane kicks. Hasegawa is fun as a plucky sidekick that needs Ajas help, though I thought the match dipped a bit in quality when she and Kyoko were in the ring as there were some meandering portions. Still eventually Yamada tags in and tries to rearrange Hasegawas face with a serious of super violent kicks and from then on it turns into really edge of your seat stuff with people getting their heads caved in and breakneck suplexes being hit. Hasegawa redeems herself by hitting a deadly solebutt and not being an obvious lost cause in the battle, and Inoue was hitting some jaw cracking lariats. Really exciting stuff as they created a sense of a swinging pendulum with various tags and partner help spots to maintain a sense of unpredictability, and the bombs they were dropping were pretty damn big bombs. Another minor gem in the pile.

Sakie Hasegawa & Debbie Malenko vs Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari, AJW 11/26/1992

This was from the Dream Rush show so obviously not the main attraction, and old joshi fans would tell you that Shark Tsuchiya sucked… but fuck all that, because this some awesome heated and highly uncooperative pro wrestling. Basically Tsuchiya and Maedomari are heat magnets, harkening back to the old Gokuaki Domei vibe that was mostly gone from AJW in 1992 with Bull and Aja turning quasi face. Tsuchiya goes at Malenko before the bell, and it’s just a heated fight from the go. There seem to be FMW fans in the building so the match had that kind of ridiculous heat. Hasegawa was like a rabid ferret in this, slapping the shit out of people, kicking her way out of holds, and absolutely looking like she was not willing to give an inch to these FMW punks. Even going over to kick people in the face when Debbie had them in a hold, or putting some extra meanness into some basic legwork. It was awe inspiringly uncooperative and evil and quite frankly, amazing. Her little exchange with Tsuchiya were Tsuchiya hit her with a tomoe nage on her face was great. Tsuchiya also has a bandaged arm/shoulder here (apparently from a legit injury) so anytime Debbie puts an armbar on her the crowd goes wild. Just a massive crowd of people going wild for Debbie snapping someones limb. A surprisingly amount of vulnerability from the brawling heels here as Team AJW keep taking them down and refusing to give them an inch, Tsuchiya even being unable to do much as she hurts herself applying a choke, until Maedomari was able to spike Hasegawa with a sick chokeslam. It continues to look like a blowout for the FMW team though until some chaos goes down and they are able to brawl on the floor for a bit. Back in the ring Hasegawa immediately double legs Maedomari and rains punches from mount on here because Sakie Hasegawa was a mean demon in this. The finish is is just Hasegawa finish Maedomari off with a series of kicks to the face and force pinning her with Maedomari struggling like she really 100% wanted to get out of the pin. Was this perfect? No, it probably was a little long, it may have been better with some blood and Team FMW getting a bit of more conventional heat, but fuck me, this was dripping intensity and heat and pretty unique, let alone for a midcard match. They absolutely do not make them like this anymore for that alone you should watch this.

Pro Wrestling 2025 Week 19

 Super Taira vs Ryutaro Ono, Sportiva 5/14

Ono is another Sportiva rookie who just made his debut. Given how Sportiva rookies are usually good, them having 4 of those rookies now plus a couple more workers that I really like (Taira, Ishida, Konaka..) it begs the question if Sportiva actually has the greatest roster in the world now because that is sure more interesting wrestlers than most other companies have right now. This Ono guy is chunky and old, like a middle aged businessman who decided to get in the ring, he has kickpads too but he seems like he will be a bit more of a raw fighter. But well this match isn't much about Ono, this is about my man Taira stretching and beating him around the ring. This is my first time seeing Taira in a while and he still looks like one of the best wrestlers on earth. Lots of cool groundwork of him controlling the bigger guy and there are bits of fun aggression and violence. Really hope Super Taira becomes a Sportiva mainstay again because he's clearly still on top of his game.

Masanori Watanabe vs Kengo Takai, Sportiva 5/14

Boy Takai looks over the hill. Really really over the hill, but he can still put the boots to a rookie, and that makes this pretty fun. Watanabe hits some fun, painful looking kicks to Takais arm and shoulder and does some cool arm attacks, so he continues to look promising, although at this point he still mostly gets squashed. But that's the fun in watching these Sportiva rookies develop, it's a week-to-week progress. And Takai can totally still hit a nasty lariat.

Charlie Dempsey vs Shinya Aoki, Bloodsport 4/17

Cool we got to see these two grapple it out. Standards for grappling-matches are actually kinda high in 2025 I think, so the first couple minutes were just alright, the highlight being Dempsey putting himself in the figure 4 to stretch Aokis ankle, but the last couple minutes were pretty great. Loved the intense struggle over the reverse gutwrench suplex, Aoki going for the abdominal stretch etc. Bit of a size mismatch but it was a really good match all around.

Meiko Satomura & Manami vs Chihiro Hashimoto & Aja Kong, 4/29

Obviously a really important match. Hashimoto looked like she was about to cry during the opening exchanges. Setting aside the emotional context, there was a lot of good wrestling to enjoy here. For Meiko, it's very much just her doing her thing for the last time, until about the last 3rd of the match where it kicks into high gear. The other participiants are pretty fun, though. Aja is still really compelling, kicking ass and knowing exactly when to do what, despite being really over the hill physically. Manami is fun for the most part and Chihiro is just a big old juggernaut who's really fun to watch charging into people with body checks and tossing them around. It's good wrestling until Meiko starts throwing open hands at Chihiro and Chihiro responds with Vader Hammers in kind. Meiko and Aja doing their old trademark exchanges was awesome considering how over the hill Aja looks and I loved that they put actual emotional stake into whether Satomura could beat her old nemesis finally. Very good match even setting aside the context, doesn't quite top the Mentai Kid match for me when it comes to high end retirement matches this year but it's absolutely worth watching, and what kind of person would you be if you didn't!

2025 Wrestling Roundup

Some Matches from GAEA STORM SIGNAL 7/14/2003

 

Ran Yu Yu vs Toshiyo Yamada, GAEA 7/14/2003

Really uniquely great under 10 minute match. The problem with joshi is that often the execution of moves is too smooth and things start to feel like an exhibition of moves. This match was so so far away from smoothness and clean execution. Almost everything here was a gritty struggle, a car wreck of reckless strikes and misses, moves are struggled over and awkwardly taken when they hit, and this was never predictable. Ran Yu Yu is one of the most underrated wrestlers in joshi history, all her strikes are such bangers, the absolute monster elbows that she would hit Yamada in this and her awesome out of nowhere leg sweep and jumping enzuigiri, all great, I also loved the weird half-dive through the ropes. Yamada also still fits like a glove in this type match, with this and the Sugar Sato match I’m wondering if she was on an unheralded monster run in the early 2000s. Lot of this felt like a Stan Hansen match which is a very good thing. Check it out if you want to see an ugly fast paced fight.

Carlos Amano vs Lioness Asuka, GAEA 7/14/2003

Hard to watch this and not think Carlos Amano is the coolest wrestler ever. Barefooted, hard headed, and bringing this crazy powerful monkey energy that is really unique. I haven’t been a huge fan of Lioness Asuka in her later years, but I give her full credit as she just went out and had a great match with Carlos here. Asuka provides a serious obstacle for Carlos to overcome, she’s bigger, she’s stiff, she can grapple, and she’s also a megastar. It was really fun watching Carlos try to crack her and get the arm for the tap. Carlos has a million slick ways to get into an armbar and it’s just spectacular show. I also thought the more light hearted moments were really fun and added to the match. Even the obligatory crowd brawl had some good struggle. I was a bit worried when Asuka brought out her goofy early 2000s tribal design signature table but it didn’t hurt the match and it lead to some really painful looking spots. Last couple minutes with Asuka throwing bombs and Amano trying to tap her out with crazy armbar reversals were pretty damn great. This ruled pretty much.

Meiko Satomura & Ayako Hamada vs Chigusa Nagayo & Aja Kong, GAEA 7/14/2003

Also a really great match, probably even better then you expect it to be. This had the underdog story you expect of Hamada and Satomura stepping up to Aja and Chigusa, but surprisingly, there was a big focus on flash submissions and unpredictable strikes here, with an ‘anything can happen’ layout that made this really exciting cutting edge pro wrestling as Meiko and Ayako threw the kitchen sink at their opponents. I am so used to seeing Meiko as an established veteran badass beating down lower ranked opponents that her performance as the fired up athletic youngsters trying to chop down the heavyweights was exhilarating. Ayako also looks really sharp here, all her offense has such snap, and her match up against Aja is known quality from their ARSION days. Aja isn’t in the match a ton, but she looks great as usual being both an untouchable monster and very vulnerable with her bandaged shoulder. Surprisingly Chigusa was pretty much the best wrestler in this match, she was 100% on here and looked like the queen. Loved all the submissions and her palm strikes were epic. Tons of great moments mostly thanks to Chiggy and Meiko, and the finish was really unique and awesome. Probably the best match on a show packed with great matches.

Assorted OZ Academy

 

Carlos Amano vs Kaoru Ito, OZ Academy 1/22/2006

Fun match where they both show off their awesome offense. You’re not going to get a ton of psychology in Kaoru Ito matches, but there was some semblance of her selling the arm, and she will absolutely murder someone with double stomps. Amano was a dynamo in this match, here constant arm attacks and headbutt variations were great. I dug all the counters she had to the uranage slam, and the finish was the kind of nifty touch she is so good at pulling off. It’s always nice to get a match where Amano shines.

Dynamite Kansai & Jaguar Yokota vs. Aja Kong & Misae Genki, OZ Academy 1/22/2006

Very cool match. All these legends aren’t going to work super hard in a mid card match on a small show, but you will still get plenty of neat touches. Loved all the little things Aja did in the match, such as blocking a Yokota footsweep and stomping on her leg. Kansai looked spry, throwing good kicks and never slowing down. Her exchanges with Aja weren’t 1993 level but they were still good and would look good on anyone elses resume. Lots of cool offense from the bigger girls in this match, and Yokotas out of nowhere rolling kicks were awesome.

Carlos Amano vs. Amazing Kong, Oz Academy 8/8/2004

 

Cracking little under 5 minute match that is built around Amano basically trying to crack Kongs skull with running headbutts and chairshots. Kong definitely moved like a star at this point and gave back pretty good. The finish is pretty crazy as Kong takes a belly first bump through a Japanese table before getting clocked with another jumping headbutt off the apron. Gnarly.

Even more AJW

 

Toshiyo Yamada vs. Sakie Hasegawa, AJW 3/3/1994

ANOTHER incredibly sick UWF rules match from AJW in 1994. This was an absolute monster match and I honestly thought it was up there with the very best of Futen/BattlARTS singles. Once again, they did some Irish Whips here, but because they kept the action so intense I didn’t mind. The violence was certified insane with a ton of sick kicks and suplexes, but a big part of why the match is so great is how hard they were going for such a long match. They basically started going hard at about 5 minutes into this – with Hasegawa going nearly KO on a Yamada choke and Yamada then trying to turn her lights out – and I was thinking “They are doing too much too early, there is no way they can keep this up”. But they keep it up! Holy fuck did they ever. There was a stretch in the middle of this that I thought was as good as any violent FUTEN end run, and they escalated the violence even more towards the end. And it wasn’t just moves-moves-moves stuff, they worked so many compelling transitions, teases, control segments etc into this, with a constant sense of going for the kill.

Hasegawa is once again the story in this. She’s not quite a shooter type but man does she ever establish herself here. She did a nice job stretching Yamadas leg in interesting ways, and her suplexes and kicks would have done anyone from the BattlARTS roster proud. The build to her uranages was great and when she finally got one on Yamada she absolutely spiked her. I also thought it was remarkable how they kept destroying each other and finding believable ways to comeback but also cut each other off. Like Yamada was getting killed until she was able to slip underneath and brain Hasegawa with one of her crazy jumping kicks, then she tried building up to her big kick off the top with Hasegawa desperately trying to prevent her, really great sense of struggle. I also really liked the bit where Yamada started suplexing Hasegawa, with Hasegawa barely preventing another suplex and Hasegawa then doing this “I don’t know where I am or what’s going” selling. Just a really good back and forth and despite all the violent exchanges they had me to the point where I was flipping out when Hasegawa locked in a sleeper. At that point I was already thinking that this match was on an insanely high level, and then they went even harder for an incredible last 5 minutes that saw Yamada trying to punt Hasegawas life out, a crazy palm strike exchange that was straight out of the best Tamura/Yamamoto RINGS matches, Hasegawa taking maybe the sickest bump on a suplex I’ve ever seen etc. There is some repetiveness and the referee was weirdly hesitant to start KO counts sometimes, but other than that I thought this was up there with any Misawa/Kawada, Ikeda/Ishikawa, Fujiwara/Maeda or whatever other incredibly great and violent match up in wrestling history you wanna come up with.

Aja Kong & Reggie Bennett vs. Lioness Asuka & Bison Kimura, AJW 5/7/1995

Badass match. This easily could have been throwaway mid card stuff, but leave it to Aja to make things ultra heated and unpredictable. Basically Kimura is out for Ajas blood here due to their history together, and Aja just doesn’t care for her and mauls her. Also, Asuka wasn’t super settled into her routine yet, so she makes a good opponent for Aja in a shooter vs. monster way. I was also surprised by how fun Reggie was in this, I mean Reggie is always cool but her power moves were just great and she also did a pretty good job stretching Bison. Bison getting frustrated and going for Reggies leg was great. I also loved her busting out the nightstick. So yeah, violence escalating in interesting ways, fun big vs. little spots, Aja mauling people, fast pace, this was really sweet.

AJW 1/4/1994

 Bull Nakano vs. Kaoru Ito

This easily could have been a bullshit rookie squash but instead we get Kaoru Ito throwing the motherfucking kitchen sink at Nakano, dropkicking her in the face and landing her trademark ultraviolent double stomps and throwing chairs like a lunatic. Nakano gets fired up and in turn tries to lariat Itos brains out. Fun, painful match. I liked that they worked this at such a length that it just broke out of squash territory but you couldn’t quite tell when it would end. Props to Nakano for making Ito look great.

Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita vs. Saeki Hasegawa & Yumiko Hotta

What we saw of this was great. That said, they only showed 12 out of 22 minutes, so you have to wonder if there was some serious cutting magic at play here. But what we saw was pretty great. When Hasegawa is in the ring, the match is solid LCO heel stuff. When Hotta steps in, the match basically turns into a fight to the death. A wrestler like 1994 Yumiko Hotta could not exist in this modern world and that’s awfully sad. Loved Shimoda desperately trying to hit her in the face. I loved LCO plausibly putting Hotta away, with Shimoda hitting a huge and spectacular dive, and LCO unloading their neck crunching finishers on Hasegawa. Blessed.

Aja Kong vs. Suzuka Minami

I thought Minami was on her way out here and that’s why Aja destroys her, but apparently she kept wrestling until the following year. Holy LORD Aja absolutely destroys her, this was a Necro level asskicking. Aja punches her in the face, drops tables and steel barricades on her head, some hellish kicks. Minami has some neat technical moves but this was almost all a hellacious asskicking with Minami getting a few well chosen token moves at the end. Proof of Minamis toughness, I guess?

Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue

I enjoyed this fine, but then, I didn’t expect much selling or a story. They actually worked some neat stuff into this, at this point these 4 were well familiar with each other so they could bust out some cool transitions like Manami going for the Manami Roll on Inoue only to be caught in a Thunder Fire Bomb etc. At one point Toyota botched her springboard dive so they improvized Toyota hitting a big splash to the floor on both Inoues, only in 90s AJW. I liked Takako punching Toyota and then kneeing her in the face before dumping her with nasty piledrivers. Yamada kicked ass as she usually does but I wanted more of her. There was no point where Toyota went on a rampage hitting 400 dropkicks or suplexes, so that was good too, and the match went under 20 minutes so they could work a strong pace without down parts.. That said, there was so little selling it all felt inconsequential, so you know what you are getting into.

The Library

Hiromi Yagi Matches

 

Hiromi Yagi vs. Aja Kong, JWP 6/16/1996

 

Considering Yagi was just barely 18 months in wrestling at this point, it’s pretty sick that they gave her a Korakuen Hall main event against Aja. And this match was pretty sick too and a really great big vs. little match. You know Yagi can’t really do a mat based match against Aja here, so they just go for maximum effect and have Aja beat the living shit out of Yagi. It’s funny how you can watch a ton of Aja beating the heck out of people and still see her coming up with new stuff, in this she throws Yagi onto the turnbuckle, smashing her head into a trashcan, throwing really stiff out of nowhere kicks etc. All of Yagis hope spots were great because she was just constantly trying to grab a limb and force a submission, with Aja swatting her away before she could lock anything in. It made the match feel like it could all turn around if Yagi got in just one armbar or legbar and that made it really exciting. I also loved how they built up Ajas splash as a big deal. Yagis brief comebacks including kicking Aja in the face were great. Aja also nuked Yagi with a huge deadlift German at one point which is not something I can recall her doing in other matches. Simple, to the point, stiff, super intense, hot crowd, this was great.

Hiromi Yagi vs. Jaguar Yokota, JWP 9/8/1996

Oh man what a sweet match up, we are on an all time level stretch of great womens wrestling on this blog right now. Yagi is pretty much the Yagi we all know and love here and they do an ARSION match before ARSION. The story is that Yagi is a beast with the submissions and rips up Yokota with a bunch of neat flash legbars and Yokota does a bunch of classy wrestling to put this fiery grappler away, 80s joshi technician vs. modern day shooto/MMA submission artist is not something you see a lot in wrestling, Yokota is so much faster and more agile than any old Tatsumi Fujinami type. Yokota is great here, she really lets Yagi shine and puts her over as this beastly grappler, while having some nice subtle holy shit spots of her own, early on she hits a really fast judo throw on Yagi to mock the judoka, later she catches her with this awesome legsweep, she also proves she still has incredible athleticism and litheness with her handsprings and bridge ups. Yokota busts out her insane double underhook piledriver, absolutely spiking Yagi and then struggles to continue in a nice nod to Yagis leg submissions, great moment. This went 15 minutes and they never slowed down, without going all spot-spot-spot, just a great duel between two great wrestlers.

A random GOAT contender

 

Aja Kong & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Yumiko Hotta & Sakie Hasegawa, AJW 4/13/1994

It’s weird how 90s Joshi in general and AJW especially is considered the peak of womens wrestling yet you can pull up a ton of random matches that nobody talks about yet they are really great. This was UWF rules and a strong match on paper, but they just kicked it up so many notches. Stylistically it wasn’t exactly shootstyle, there is some rope running etc., but in general they keep it really grounded. This match was up there with the absolute most violent BattlARTS/FUTEN matches, all 4 threw strikes and suplexes on an absolutely hellish level, with several hits that were as violent as anything I’ve ever seen in a wrestling match. They go really long (30ish minutes) and you’d think there is no way they can keep it up, but they keep it up. 

Hasegawa is kind of the odd one here, she isn’t quite a shooter type, although I liked her face dropkicks. She was giving her all and the disparity between her and the two kickpadded beasts on the other team kind of carried the match, because it means Hotta has to fight and uphill battle and Hasegawa has to dig deep in order to not get blown away. There was a really nice mat section where Hasegawa honest to god grappled it out with Aja which was impressive considering what a beast Aja is. I also liked Hasegawas leg selling, she had a bandaged leg, and she did a pretty real job selling it even when there was never a section where it got worked over, she was cautious to avoid an early leg submission and later there is a really tense nearfall where Aja catches her in a leg hold. 

To re-emphasize, this match was absolutely hideously violent with Hasegawa taking some Misawa level crazy suplex bumps and Hotta, Yamada and Aja basically trying to cave heads in with their kicks. Aja was as much of a monster as you expect, mauling people with her hands and feet, while Yamada has the flashier kicks and she was also killing people. Hotta was a lunatic as you expect kneeing and kicking people in the face, there was a moment where she kicked Aja in the back of the head that sounded and looked absolutely abhorrent, and I honestly thought this was just as violent as the famous Hotta/Kong singles, it wasn’t a blood bath but Hotta was spitting blood after getting her face busted by a kick and the grueling onslaught of this 30 minute war was downright psychotic. They also did a really great job working saves and retaliations based around saves, there is a sequence where Hotta is trying to joke out Yamada and you just know what’s coming next. Later Hotta would get up and paste Aja on the apron with a sick thudding blow in retaliation. 

They go really long but they just keep going and going and there is so much fight and grittiness in this and then they really pick it up for the last few minutes where we get multiple epic faceoffs with great edge of your seat near KOs. Hasegawa unleashing her inner ass kicker, kicking people in the face and hitting these winded desperation spin kicks was truly awesome and her big slap that knocked over Aja may have been the highlight in a match full of insane highlights simply because it paid off the story. Then we also get the Aja vs. Hotta finale which is as criminal as you expect and yet they somehow manage to not overdo it!!! Granted this match isn’t flawless, some parts were slightly repetitive, but god damn it the sheer fight in this, the grit, the violence, it even had a great underdog story and somehow it left me wanting more. It’s been a long time since I felt a match I was watching for the first time might be the greatest of all time but this gave me the feeling.

ARSION That I Missed

 Mariko Yoshida vs. Mikiko Futagami, ARSION 8/9/1998

Here's a great match that I missed as it didn't make the Best of ARSION comp. It says a lot how loaded with great wrestling 1998 ARSION was that this was just one of 3 great matches that evening, but here we are. GAMI may have been the 2nd greatest act in the promotion after Yoshida. Like Yoshida is this monster submission artist, but GAMI is this tricky technician who can counter and catch her. Lots of great grappling exchanges as you expect, and Futagamais surprise abisegiris and palm strikes ruled. Great finish, too, and it was just under 8 minutes.

Aja Kong vs. Mikiko Futagami, ARSION 4/11/1998

Quality match built around GAMI chipping away at Ajas bad knee. That kind of layout could be trite especially on a houseshow match, but thanks to Aja constantly fighting back everything felt highly competitive. As soon as Futagami gained the upper hand, she started torturing Aja with nasty stomps and really stretching her leg out with legbars. There was one calf slicer that was more like an ankle slicer the way GAMI had it applied. Kongs agony selling is really convincing and the finishing stretch is really great. Futagami is a great tricky counter wrestler which naturally matches up well against a juggernaut like Aja, but Aja also busted out some slick reversals.

Mariko Yoshida vs. Yumi Fukawa, ARSION 5/8/1998

This match up is kind of an all timer. This was a really dominant performance from Yoshida, which is not a problem because she‘s a top 5 grappler of all time AND also pretty great and selling slight vulnerabilities even when she‘s totally owning her opponent. Right away Fukawa misses a flying armbar and from that point on Yoshida mostly counters Fukawas counter attempts. A few crazy submission attempts as usual such as Yoshida busting out an armbar from an indian deathlock position and then turns Fukawas counter attempt into a Fujiwaraesque leg stretch. Really nice sequence where Fukawa is able to get a leglock, Yoshida is able to reverse it but comes up with a slight limp which signals for Fukawa to start pouncing. Fukawa didn‘t have much chance but she gave it her all, and those couple seconds where she got something in felt important due to Yoshidas dominance. Sick finish. Another example of this crew being unable to do any wrong in 1998.

Assorted AJW Handhelds

 

Aja Kong vs. Mariko Yoshida, AJW 2/7/1995

This was before Yoshida was the master grappler and instead a highflyer. Individual parts of this match were pretty great, just needed slightly better selling and transitions to make a classic. Opening has Aja crushing Yoshida with fat kicks and elbow drops, really says a lot about Ajas status as an all time great monster that she is destroying people on house shows. Yoshida works Ajas leg, and while Aja doesn‘t really sell it the section didn‘t go long and I loved Yoshida going to town on Ajas leg with Ajas trashcan. Kong going to toss Yoshida around outside the ring (camera guy misses most of that part but from what we hear it sounds like Yoshida took a bunch of nasty bumps into metal) was cool and the finish was pretty great with Yoshida throwing hands and both fighting fierce. Yoshida even kicking out of Kongs basic moves got big reactions and her graceful flying is still really cool. The thud when Yoshida flew right into a kick had to be one of the sickest I‘ve heard. Nasty, well-timed face crushing backfist finish too. This really feels like a match they should‘ve run on a bigger stage even in 1995.

Manami Toyota & Yumiko Hotta vs. Aja Kong & Kaoru Ito, AJW 1/25/1995

Pretty great, fired up house show main event tag. Kong always beats the fuck out of Toyota, and there are one or 2 badass exchanges between her and Hotta in this. It was all about how young Kaoru Ito would hold in a main event with the big players, and she does pretty fine as the plucky sidekick to juggernaut Aja. Opening with Ito setting up her higher ranked opponents to be pulverized by Ajas crushing moves was really great, and Toyota and Hotta are really good at cutting off and isolating their opponents. It picks up strong for the ending phase as Ito stands stronger than you expect against her opponents. I was ready to complain about Toyota making an easy comeback, but then Ito just tried to stomp her guts out. Incredible vicious double stomps that girl had. Finish with Toyota & Hotta turning Itos and Kongs double teams against them was surprisingly smart. Trickier match than you‘d expect.

FMW 1/10/1996

Ricky Fuji vs. Hayato Nanjyo

Two juniors you don‘t see work a lot. They did a RVD/Jerry Lynn like routine of dodging spin kicks and going for ground moves early on. Then they settle into slow, pointless, time killing matwork routine before they whip out their cool highspots. Nanjyos asia moonsault was pretty beautiful and Fuji spiked him hard with Tiger Driver style moves. Crowd popped huge in the last couple minutes. Both guys also had good fashion sense, Fuji rocking some tasteful tights with tassles and his glorious dyed mane and Nanjo a cheap but charming looking silver costume with a red scarv belt.

Bad Nurse Nakamura vs. Yuki Nabeno

A surprisingly heated little match. Nabeno laid a ton of spice into her moves, dropkicking Nakamura in the face. Bad Nurse looked like quite the badass tearing up Nabenos bandaged shoulder and then finishing her with a nasty STF.

Daisuke Ikeda vs. Hisakatsu Oya

This was a truely mouth-watering match up. Ikeda vs. Ishikawa is one of the greatest matchups of all time, and Oya is the sleazy Fake Ishikawa. And they duke it out in a BattlARTS-before-BattlARTS style match here! Mostly gritty matwork in between Ikeda kicking the dogshit out of Oya. Oya took some manly ass kicks and then dropped Ikeda on his head with those big backdrop suplexes of his. 11 minutes of exactly what you want it to be.

Megumi Kudo vs. Chigusa Nagayo

Bomb-dropping sprint with some smartness displayed. I loved how they would put over the sleeper. Kudo was a bit sloppy here and there so I give Nagayo credit. She handled herself like a badass and put Kudos submissions over really strong, in between destroying her with kicks and throws. When she fought out of a sleeper, then collapsed, barely hit a counter move and tried to shake of the cobwebs it was like something that should be hammered into every aspiring wrestlers head on how to sell chokeholds. After a match a pull apart happens between all the girls in FMW and GAEA tracksuits and Nagayo bleeds and jumps on Miwa Sato like she is going to kill her because that‘s what Chiggy does.

Aja Kong vs. Combat Toyoda

Another sick ass match up on this card, what was Arai on when he put all this awesome shit together? These two could have an intricate epic match, but fuck that this is FMW, they chuck tables at each others heads and bleed. Opening brawling with Toyoda smashing things over Ajas head and then suicide diving right into an Aja trashcan shot was just great. Both women bleed, and then we get them both exchanging stiff blows and crushing each other with suplexes. I‘d say the lariat trading here was better than usual in Japanese matches because these two are supposed to be crazy monsters so you buy it more. Excellent build to the finish. This hit all the spots.

 

Hayabusa & Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka vs. BADBOY Hido & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Kintaro Kanemura 

This had barbedwire ropes, spider nets and they brought in a ladder among other things. It was like a pretty typical multiman match involving all those things. At first guys try not to get thrown into the barbed wire, then they do get thrown into it, some highspots and a heel control segments happen before the bomb throwing finish. The brawling here wasn't super exciting although technically there was a cool matchup in Hayabusa/Matsunaga. The highspots were pretty good with some big dives over the barbedwire and a splash off the ladder to the outside. Bomb throwing was also gnarly but didn't go long. Overall this was a solid entry to the genre.

The Library

2002 MOTY Project Update #16

 13. Undertaker vs. Brock Lesnar, WWE 10/20/2002

Slow paced, violent, triple juice hell in a cell match. Almost the ideal match for two monsters locked in a cage to have. The opening work around the cast was fun and things got plenty intense once Lesnar started smashing up his hand. I admit I dislike melodramatic overacting in wrestling so I was a bit annoyed by Heyman. Takers punches were weak, but he had a few badass moments such as the big boot that sent Brock into the cell and the weird kneedrop thing that almost killed Brock. Brock was great in the match. He wasn't yet the MMA guy but just this crazy beast and threw Taker around like a puppet. Match went long but ended at just the right time.

32. Meiko Satomura & Ayako Hamada vs. Aja Kong & Manami Toyota, GAEA 8/30/2002

Classic match built around a pair of rising stars trying to overcome some asskicking veterans. Lots of fiery fighting and great spots. I guess due to the match format Toyotas no selling didn't hurt match. And Aja was just a tank. And Ayako and Meiko - for two talented girls stuck in GAEA limbo - gave their all. Not much to say on this, it's just a straight forward, immensely enjoyable match.

2002 MOTY MASTER LIST